A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration crossed First Amendment lines when it took over employees’ email accounts to force their messages to include language blaming Democrats for the government shutdown.
Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee to the court in Washington, said Friday that agency leaders turned employees into unwitting mouthpieces for President Trump’s rhetoric.
The Education Department had done just that, adding automatic lines to employees’ outgoing emails placing blame for the shutdown on Democrats.
“Political officials are free to blame whomever they wish for the shutdown, but they cannot use rank-and-file civil servants as their unwilling spokespeople,” Judge Cooper ruled. “The First Amendment stands in their way. The department’s conduct therefore must cease.”
He said adding an auto-reply that said the sender was out of pocket while the lapse in funding continued was safe.
But he said it went too far to say: “Unfortunately, Democratic senators are blocking passage of H.H. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations.”
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The change was made to furloughed employees’ emails without their knowledge. When some tried to change it, it was automatically put back, the judge said.
Judge Cooper rejected the administration’s arguments that the case should have gone to another forum for adjudication.
Trump lawyers also said the added messages weren’t the employees’ speech but were the government’s own speech, since out-of-office replies are within the scope of official business.
Judge Cooper acknowledged that was untrodden legal ground. But he said the principle that government employees retain free speech rights even while on the job prevailed.
The American Federation of Government Employees had brought the case on behalf of its members.
Judge Cooper’s ruling only applies to them, but he said if it’s impossible to single them out then he’ll order removal from all employees.
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“Today’s ruling vindicates the foundational principle that career federal civil servants work for the people, not for partisan interests,” said Cormac Early, a lawyer at Public Citizen Litigation Group, which helped the union argue the case.
